Victoria Melody is passionate about your passions and has a soft spot for all ‘enthusiasts’. So much so that through these subcultures, Melody has found a niche as a theatrical storyteller. Immersing herself in the pastimes and vocations of others – whether they be ‘pigeon fanciers’, funeral staff, Northen Soul dancers or championship dog handlers at Crufts – these experiences have informed Melody’s previous shows that have celebrated these activities. To hear Melody relate this to us, there is a ‘romantic’, quirky charm to her endeavours – exhibiting qualties that remind us of Louis Theroux, the eponymous heroine of the movie Amélie and the old children’s TV programme Mr Benn.

As more information is relayed to us throughout the evening, we realise that Head Set is not only the culmination of her previous work to date, the insights that Melody’s acquired while making this show are a stepping-off point for her future projects – the difference being she now knows why she is drawn to certain things and can build on that to her material’s advantage. But we’ll come back to that later.

As someone who has toured the country with her previous shows, Melody is open about the toll it takes over time – not only in terms of sustaining relationships, but also the physical stress of hauling props from place to place and not earning enough to qualify for a mortgage. This aspect of being a ‘performance artist/actor’ is rarely discussed on stage, and if memory serves me correctly, the last open discourse on this matter was Bryony Kimmings’ disclosure of her expenses in 2018 and the subsequent debate online about others in similar circumstances.

But I digress.

Rather than create another show that’s reliant on hauling props everywhere, what pastime could Melody partake in that’s genuinely interesting, yet could also (down the line) help her get a mortgage? Being an amateur stand-up comedian…

Anyone familiar with Trevor Griffiths’ play Comedians knows of the contradictory advice that up-and-coming comics receive from ‘seasoned teachers’, versus what is expected and ‘works’ on the circuit. While the advice Melody receives conforms to ‘received wisdom’ such as the ‘rule of three’, Melody finds her material doesn’t resonate with her teacher and that no matter how much she tries, she ‘cannot’ fit her ‘noncomformist’ routines to a ‘cookie-cutter’ approach to mirth.

But it is while Melody is on her journey of self-improvement as a comedian, there is also a greater odyssey that she’s undertaking – that leads to epiphanies that ‘blow the doors wide open’ with regards to how she perceives herself and how she approaches her material. Reluctant to accept the evidence at first (like most people would), things all make sense when Melody realise she has ADHD and later, autism. Much of the latter half of the show relates to this and how the ‘treatment’ of ADHD can be a double-edged sword…

Through Dr De Pirro – a friend of Melody’s who is a neuroscientist – Melody is able to connect the relationship between ‘risk-taking’ in comedy with the natural ‘high’ of dopamine that the brain releases in such instances. The discussions with Dr De Pirro lead to the eponymous ‘head set’ that Melody wears in subsequent comedy routines, to measure her increased electrical activity while on stage. This has garnered interest from universities in the UK and overseas, and even when the head set doesn’t work 100% during stand-up, audiences think it’s all part of her act. While Melody may have been suffering from ‘imposter’s syndrome’ while performing her ‘safe’ material in her earlier attempts as a comedian, she – to quote the idiom popularised by Jimi Hendrix and Crosby, Stillls, Nash & Young – ultimately finds herself most at ease when she let she lets her ‘freak flag fly’.

One could argue that as a show, Head Set is partly ‘meta’ in nature, a comedy show wrapped up within the framework of performance theatre (or is it the other way around?!). Be that as it may, there’s nothing ‘cerebral’ about the proceedings, nothing that keeps the audience away at arm’s length by marvelling at its own ‘cleverness’. To put it simply, Head Set is a funny, honest account of one woman’s road to self-acceptance and her discovery that her so-called ‘imperfections’ are the very reason people can relate to her. The most rewarding comedy doesn’t stem from ‘playing it safe’. It’s from the comedian ‘laying it all on the line’, having something to say and being themselves.

© Michael Davis 2023

Head Set ran at the Midlands Arts Centre on 6th October. It continues its national tour at the following venues and dates:

10 October: Queen’s Hall Arts Centre, Hexham
Queen’s Hall, Beaumont Street, Hexham NE46 3LS
7.30pm | £12 – £10
https://www.queenshall.co.uk/ 01434 652477

11 October: Brewery Arts, Kendal
122A Highgate, Kendal LA9 4HE
8pm | £12.50
https://www.breweryarts.co.uk/ 01539 725 133

12 October: The Old Woollen, Leeds
Sunny Bank Mills, 83 – 85 Town Street, Farsley, Leeds, LS28 5UJ
8pm | £12.50
https://oldwoollen.co.uk/ 0743 488 1359

13 October: The Civic, Barnsley
Hanson Street, Barnsley, S70 2HZ
7pm | £12 – £6
https://barnsleycivic.co.uk/ 01226 327000

17 October: The Garage, Norwich
14 Chapel Field North, Norwich, Norfolk, NR2 1NY
7.30pm | £15 – £10
https://thegarage.org.uk/ 01603 283382

19 October: The Edge, Manchester
Manchester Road, Chorlton, Manchester, M21 9JG
7.30pm | £15 – £13
https://www.edgetheatre.co.uk/ 0161 282 9776

20 October: Arena Theatre, Wolverhampton
Wulfruna Street, Wolverhampton,West Midlands, WV1 1SE
7.30pm | £12
https://www.wlv.ac.uk/arena-theatre/ 01902 321 321

24 – 25 October: Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, Brighton
University of Sussex Gardner Centre Road, Brighton, East Sussex BN1 9RA
8pm | £12- £10
https://attenboroughcentre.com/ 01273 678822

30 October: Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff
Market Road, Canton, Cardiff, CF5 1QE
7.30pm | £15 – £12
https://chapter.org/ 029 2031 1050

1 November: The Spring Arts & Heritage, Havant
56 East Street Havant, Hampshire PO9 1BS
7.30pm | £15 – £5
https://thespring.co.uk/ 023 9247 2700

2 November: Jackson’s Lane, London
269a Archway Road, London N6 5AA
7.30pm | £15
https://www.jacksonslane.org.uk/ 020 8340 5226

3 November: South Street, Reading
21 South Street, Reading, Berkshire, RG1 4QU
8pm | £12 – £10
https://whatsonreading.com/venues/south-street/whats-on 0118 9606060

7 November: Exeter Phoenix, Exeter
Gandy Street, Exeter, Devon, EX4 3LS
7.30pm | £12 – £10
https://exeterphoenix.org.uk/ 01392 667080

8 November: Front Room, Weston-Super-Mare
13 Central Walk, Weston-super-Mare, United Kingdom, BS23 1FF
7.30pm | £12
https://www.frontroomwsm.com/ frontroomwsm@gmail.com

9 November: Landmark Theatre, Devon
The Landmark, Ilfracombe, Devon, EX34 9BZ
7.30pm | £13.50
https://queenstheatre-barnstaple.com/ | 01271 316523

10 November: Barbican Theatre, Plymouth
Castle Street, Plymoluth, PL1 2NJ
7.30pm | £15 – £12
https://barbicantheatre.co.uk/ | info@barbicantheatre.co.uk

11 November: Key Theatre, Peterborough
Embankment Road, Peterborough, PE1 1EF
7.30pm | £13.50
https://keytheatre-peterborough.com/ 01733 852992